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The Way School Lunches Change Between Korea and The United States

By Kaitlin Clifford

Ever wondered what it’s like for other countries when eating school lunches on a day to day basis? We’re going to take a look at Korea and see what students there have in their lunches compared to what students in the United States have.

From watching Korean Dramas, I’ve seen the appeal of Korean school lunches and that they seem much tastier and healthier compared to that of US lunches. Not only does each meal have a colorful aesthetic, but the meals themselves look healthier and less processed also!

In the United States, child obesity rates have skyrocketed. This is partly from what children eat at school, which is mostly processed food. When looking at the lunches themselves, you can instantly tell that most of it is processed. For example, when you look at some chicken nuggets, they look like they came right out of the frozen section at your nearest grocery store. Even though schools require children to take a fruit or vegetable in their lunch, many don’t finish everything that is on their plates and the fruits and vegetables end up getting thrown away.

A post shared by School Lunches (@u.s.school.lunch) on Nov 4, 2016 at 3:08pm PDT

In Korea, each school lunch will typically have a soup, rice, and some side dishes. Korean food is overall healthier, with each meal having fermented kimchi, vegetables, and meat. Students in Korea work very hard each day, sometimes going to school from 8am to 10pm each day, with many students going to private schools to get the best education possible. Lunches, and even dinners at school, need to be healthy so that students can keep up their brain activity and continue achieving high performance in their academics. Eating properly is very important, so students need to eat almost, to all of their food in order to be excused. If the teacher believes the student did not eat properly, they might tell the student to take a few more bites of food. This ensures that students receive all of the nutritious value from each meal.

Overall, I’ve realized that the school lunches in Korea are definitely healthier than here in the US. It’s no wonder that child obesity in the United States is on the rise, when so many other countries around the world feed their children healthy natural choices, instead of processed food like so many of our meals here. Having healthy options for children to eat throughout their childhood is an important choice in order to help them grow, and keep their academic potential high.